Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 27th - March 5th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 4th - March 5th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €269,941 and ran 3549 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SP

10


1. SP (€40,971)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,780)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€327)

308

€45,778

PvdA

24


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€24,995)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€5,398)
3. PvdA Limburg (€3,312)

317

€42,612

GroenLinks

13


1. GroenLinks (€34,443)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,090)
3. Jesse Klaver (€750)

105

€37,603

CDA

23


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€5,478)
2. CDA (€5,281)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€2,388)

384

€23,801

BBB

5


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€19,101)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€471)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€250)

66

€20,022

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€17,099)
2. Volt Brabant (€604)
3. Volt Noord-Holland (€374)

589

€18,077

VVD

30


1. VVD (€6,297)
2. Limburgse VVD (€2,848)
3. VVD Flevoland (€2,498)

376

€17,469

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€16,024)
2. Wybren van Haga (€797)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

17

€16,921

PvdD

11


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€6,699)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€1,084)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€616)

193

€9,705

D66

19


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€1,623)
2. D66 (€1,376)
3. D66 Zuid-Holland (€840)

198

€8,397

PVV

10


1. Geert Wilders (€4,623)
2. PVVLimburg (€300)
3. PVV Fryslan (€248)

48

€5,994

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€4,536)
2. BVNL-Haarlemmermeer (€142)
3. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)

58

€4,978

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€4,150)

261

€4,150

ChristenUnie

12


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,500)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€701)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€579)

123

€3,826

DENK

2


1. DENK (€3,041)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€433)

383

€3,474

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€2,184)
2. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€550)
3. 50PLUSFlevoland (€506)

61

€3,395

SGP

4


1. SGP (€855)
2. SGP provincie Gelderland (€639)
3. SGP Zeeland (€399)

45

€1,993

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,646)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,746

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €145,780 and ran 2661 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

GroenLinks

11


1. GroenLinks (€19,018)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€958)
3. Jesse Klaver (€750)

80

€21,807

PvdA

19


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€11,348)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,544)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€1,801)

213

€20,903

CDA

19


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€5,478)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€2,388)
3. CDA Limburg (€2,212)

357

€17,924

Volt Nederland

3


1. Volt Nederland (€12,219)
2. Volt Brabant (€604)
3. Volt Noord-Holland (€374)

588

€13,197

SP

8


1. SP (€9,854)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,661)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€176)

156

€12,191

VVD

24


1. VVD (€2,721)
2. Limburgse VVD (€2,348)
3. VVD Flevoland (€844)

307

€9,778

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€8,976)
2. Wybren van Haga (€714)

10

€9,690

PvdD

11


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€6,489)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€885)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€294)

171

€8,724

D66

18


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€1,623)
2. D66 Zuid-Holland (€840)
3. D66 Provincie Utrecht (€739)

134

€7,497

BBB

4


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€6,529)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€250)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€100)

31

€6,979

BVNL

5


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€3,823)
2. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)
3. BVNL Zaltbommel (€100)

46

€4,223

ChristenUnie

12


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,085)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€232)

93

€2,596

PVV

7


1. Geert Wilders (€1,485)
2. PVVLimburg (€300)
3. PVV Fryslan (€117)

30

€2,302

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,284)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€447)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€133)

39

€1,983

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,478)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€353)

249

€1,831

SGP

4


1. SGP (€855)
2. SGP Zeeland (€399)
3. SGP Tholen (€100)

35

€1,454

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,428)

110

€1,428

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,273)

12

€1,273

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)